Who is Anton?

Meet Anton Krecic, Founder of Seven Weeks Coffee!

About Seven Weeks Coffee

Start saving lives with your morning coffee.

Founded by Anton Krecic in 2021, Seven Weeks Coffee is a coffee brand with a mission. Gathering inspiration from the critical seven-week gestational period when a baby is the size of a coffee bean and has a heartbeat, the company donates 10% of all its proceeds to pro-life organizations. In just three years, the company has donated over $450,000 and saved 4,500 unborn lives.

Anton's Journey

At seven weeks, a baby is the size of a coffee bean. At seven weeks, a baby's heartbeat is detected. 

With a passion for entrepreneurship, an interest in coffee, and a desire to uplift pro-life causes, Anton built Seven Weeks Coffee from the ground up in 2021 — two weeks after he got married. When he came up with the idea for his future company, Anton called his new wife and asked what she thought. Although he says that she might have thought he was crazy at first, she was supportive of his idea. 

Anton came up with the idea for his company in September of that year. By November, customers could purchase coffee off the website.

Serving a Greater Mission

Seven Weeks Coffee donates 10% of every sale to organizations that support the pro-life cause, and the company has found great success in this. Despite the percentage of profits that the company gives back, Anton does it because he believes in a great mission and a great cause. 

Each customer also contributes to a great mission, and Anton says that this is what most customers love about the company. What Seven Weeks Coffee does makes a difference. A deeper understanding and appreciation arises when people learn the meaning behind the brand's name, and Anton says that people love what the company stands for.

Crafting the Company

Before starting Seven Weeks Coffee, Anton had no experience in E-Commerce. In the process of creating the company, he read business newsletters and marketing emails and immersed himself in the career field. Then, he saw one post about how coffee is a great way to share a mission and create a community, and this concept deeply resonated with him. 

Anton searched for other pro-life coffee company brands and found a gap in the E-Commerce space. Realizing that there was a market for his company, Anton took a chance and started his own.

The Seven Weeks Coffee Team 

Anton is his company's only full-time employee. He employs remote agents from offshore locations and relies on contractors and other agencies to help with the workload of running a business. 

Anton has freelancers in the U.S. who handle ad management and social media, among other aspects of the company. 

When Anton first started the company, he thought he would have to hire a team to help with the business, but he soon learned that many other E-Commerce companies are structured similarly to Seven Weeks Coffee. 

Many E-Commerce companies have lean teams and hire contractors and offshore freelancers when they need extra help. Although Anton initially feared running a company without a large team, he embraced his company's structure as a cool aspect of his business.

Evolution of Customer Service

Anton says the company operates its customer experience through three main channels: its website, social media, and email. He consistently wants to improve how the company connects with its customers, so he's adopted the mindset of asking himself how to improve the customer experience.

Because the company has improved its presentation and customer service, Anton says it's like night and day looking at how far the company has come in just two-and-a-half years. The key to continuous improvement is simple, he says. A business leader should have consistent interaction with their company and its customers to make a better product, have more compelling messaging, and make it easy for their customers to understand the business value proposition so they can make a purchase. 

To improve a company's website, Anton advises leaders to have a constant feedback loop or a mindset of constantly improving and tweaking the platform — from copy to web layout and design or product display. The website is the front door to your company, so it's essential to think about how a potential customer will perceive it. By tuning in and listening to customer concerns, you can continue to improve your business, which will help it find more success and reach in the future.

Seven Weeks Coffee's Growth Strategies

Anton had a background in political fundraising and a great network of people he met throughout his career who shared the pro-life political view. When he created his company, he leveraged his connections by collaborating with different organizations and attending conferences to raise brand awareness.

He remembers a time when he had to find an innovative way of doing things when he was in a bind. When the company was getting on its feet, he didn't have enough money to purchase a booth for a conference. Instead, he emailed the event organizers and told them that he would love to promote his business during the conference and give 10% of each sale back to the event. The organizers told him that they had extra space for another booth.

Anton also worked with the media to promote the company in its early months and had some free press written about it in prominent publications. Slowly and surely, he grew his company's base from the beginning.

Achieving Revenue Over Time

Anton found quick success shortly after starting his company. In the first year, Seven Weeks Coffee brought in $650,000 in sales and $2.7 million in its second. The company has found a great audience and customer base, so Anton anticipates that the company will continue to grow in revenue as time passes. 

Seven Weeks Coffee partners with a coffee roasting company that handles fulfillment, and Anton says that the partnership has helped immensely with dealing with demand increases. The company has never hit full capacity with Seven Weeks Coffee, and there's a lot of room for both businesses to grow together. 

Anton focuses on driving sales rather than fulfillment, which he considers strategic and important in forecasting E-Commerce growth. If someone wants to start a business, they have to think about how companies grow and succeed. This can be achieved by finding the right supplier and creating a successful partnership.

Additionally, Anton attributes his company's success to providing options for his customers. Because he started with a simple concept — medium or dark roast coffee — and saw that it worked and customers were interested, he continued expanding the brand's products. Seven Weeks Coffee now provides over 11 types of coffee, k-cups, and a wide range of SKUs and products.

The company travels to 7 to 10 in-person events yearly to connect with customers. Annually, Anton meets with about 2,000 customers and attends pro-life and faith-based conferences where he sets up a booth and sells coffee. Anton says that this is great because he can meet with his customers in person, talk to them one-on-one, and get to know who they are. He loves to travel and connect with his customers, and he says this is one of the most incredible things his company does.

Connecting with his customers helps Anton build a loyal following and shows them he cares. During these interactions, he also gets great feedback from the customer on what could be better about the company’s products or customer experience.

Reinvesting into the Company

Anton started Seven Weeks Coffee as a side hustle, and because of this, he didn't take any money out of the business for almost eight months. When he left his full-time job to focus on the company, he realized that he would have to start taking out some money to pay himself. During the first year, he paid himself very little and kept fanning the flame so the company could continue growing. 

Eventually, he started to learn more about the E-Commerce business and developed the brand by using EBITDA and setting up KPIs. Anton says keeping everything simple for his company was the way to go. 

The majority of the company's revenue comes from returning customers and subscriptions. Because coffee is a consumable product, there's a subscription aspect. Anton does email marketing and other campaigns to keep the company on top of customers' minds and share the team's work, which is consistently giving back to hundreds of nonprofits across the nation. Since the company's inception, Anton has raised over $450,000 in donations. 

Over time, Anton has learned that telling the company's story has helped customer retention. Customers now see the impact their purchases have in the community.

Peak Season Strategies

After studying other successful companies, Anton has learned that great businesses have compelling offers during holiday seasons, bringing in more customer interest. From October to December 15, coffee is an excellent gift for friends, coworkers, and family. Anton prefers to prepare and think ahead to create clever marketing to garner more purchases and interest during peak season. 

Elevating to the Next Level

Moving forward, Anton plans to continue growing the company's profits. All goals, he says, have to be seen through the lens of company health and profits because that's how a company becomes successful. In the next few years, Anton wants to build out a team, improve the website, provide better offers for customers, and expand the coffee selection. Soon, the company will debut organic coffee, which Anton is excited about. 

Tech Stack

Gorgias — Customer service

Shopify — Business operation

Platter — A themed app that runs through Shopify. It allows more customization on the website and operates as a self-service model.

Numeral — Files company taxes

Advice for Entrepreneurs

Early on, new business leaders have to hustle consistently. Anton says that even though it's easy to be complacent and become comfortable with where their business stands, leaders must adopt a continuous improvement mindset. If leaders don't try to improve whenever they can, they can become stagnant. 

Anton also says that leaders should keep things simple. When creating their business, leaders don't need to make every important decision early on. In his experience, Anton decided not to raise product prices for the first year even though the company could have. Instead, he focused on growing the business smoothly and profitably.

After a year and a half, he developed benchmarks for the company and outlined revenue numbers. He delayed some important decisions because he felt it was more important first to grow the company's audience. As the company grew during its first year, he had to remember the basic function of his business — to sell coffee and deliver it to the customer.